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Not accounting for your sins, which are forgiven, but being shown the many times God put me or you into a situation for a reason, crossing paths with someone for a reason, and I being too caught up in my own drama, fail to see what my role ought to have been. And the consequences in the lives of the people around me because I didn't see it.

Certainly we are responsible for the negative consequences we create for other people by virtue of our decisions. A mature person weighs the probable consequences of various alternative actions before he makes his choice.

We do live in an age, however, that radically elevates and isolates the human individual from any sense of participation in, or duty, with respect to the wider community. Such a person very likely does not at all fear God's Judgment, for the simple reason that he either doubts God "exists," or has positively denied Him. What occurs then is a major disordering of the individual, and concomitant disordering of whatever his acts can reach.

The "war on Christianity" proceeds apace; and as it does, our society becomes more and more chaotic, disordered, dysfunctional, crass, greedy, and vicious. Certainly God does not intend for his children to live in that way, but He leaves the choice to us. And ineluctably, we will have to account to God for our choices....

"All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God...." We necessarily fall short of the glory of God for we are images, mere reflections of Him, not the "original" being imaged or reflected.

Yet the imago Dei in which we were created is the most important part of us. And the most important relation we can have in life is our relation to God. Simply put, this relation is expressed in the Great Commandment, to love God with all one's heart and soul and mind and strength, and — the following corollary — to love our neighbor as ourself. The cardinal Christian virtues of faith and hope and love, and the help of the Holy Spirit, are our faithful guides to life more abundantly in this life and the next, for ourselves and those whom we influence by our words and deeds.

But we all fall short. And the reckoning for our falling short that we owe Jesus Christ on Judgment Day will doubtless be painful.

It seems to me the best we can do is to follow Christ, to try to live constantly in the Presence of our Lord, in direct relation to Him. Our God is a merciful God....

Thank you dear brother marron for sharing your beautiful reflections.